Make a Christmas Wish

by Julia Williams

  It says: I’m sorry.

  What? I go cold all over. Is this some kind of sick joke? Maybe one of my colleagues is playing a prank on me. I look around but everyone seems to be chatting cheerfully about the party. Besides, why would anyone do something like this?

  Who is this? I reply cautiously. But there’s no answer, just a cold breath on my neck and a chill up my spine.

  Emily

  Emily was working late. Being in IT meant she had to be flexible, and tonight she was needed to help sort out the office mainframe, which had overheated. Adam had invited her to his company’s work do, and she was still in two minds as to whether to go. Emily had met a couple of Adam’s workmates, but she knew that Livvy had been a popular figure in the office, in and out of there since Joe was tiny. It made Emily nervous to think that people might be judging her, though Adam told her she had nothing to worry about. Emily would much rather go out somewhere just with Adam, particularly as Joe was spending the evening with his new friend, Caroline, a girl he’d met at college. Adam hadn’t been all that keen on going either, but his work colleagues had been a great support to him after Livvy had died, and he felt he had to show his face, so Emily thought the least she could do was keep him company.

  ‘Come on, Ems, it will be fine now,’ said her boss, a skinny bearded twenty-something called Daniel, who ran Digit AL, the small company she’d found herself temping at for the last few months. ‘Some of us are going for a drink – do you want to join us?’

  ‘Thanks Dan, but I’ve got plans.’ Emily liked the atmosphere of the place, which was run by geeky lads, most of whom looked barely out of their teens. They were a lot of fun though, and on another occasion she might have been tempted to join them; she found their company energizing. But she was already late for Adam’s party, so she closed down her computer and set off across a chilly, frosty London, squashed on busy trains full of people in cheery Christmas mode. Emily wasn’t quite feeling the Christmas vibe this year – there seemed to be a lot of tricky moments to get through before the day itself, and she still wasn’t sure she and Adam were getting it right with Joe.

  Emily’s heart was in her mouth as she entered the room. She’d never been big on work parties – Graham had always made it spectacularly clear that she wasn’t terribly welcome at his. And Adam’s office was small and closely knit and everyone knew each other’s families. She felt that people were curious about this new woman in Adam’s life.

  Adam had kept his problems at home very much to himself so nobody at work had known what really went on, and now Livvy was dead she had attained martyr status. Emily was the new woman, suspiciously new to some, and she knew that she was viewed with distrust in some quarters. People wanted him to be happy, but clearly felt he should have left a decent period of mourning. But how long was a decent period? None of them knew Adam was on the verge of leaving Livvy when she died. Emily hadn’t meant to fall in love with Adam; hadn’t meant to be a home wrecker, and yet that’s what had happened, although to be fair she had come along after the wrecking had been done: Adam and Livvy had done that all by themselves. Even so, she couldn’t help feeling the anxious tug of guilt.

  Emily scanned the crowds, relieved to find Adam in the corner with his mates Phil and Dave. That was good. She’d met Phil and Dave several times before and they were fun, and had seemed to accept her readily.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, shyly. ‘I made it then.’

  ‘So you did,’ said Adam, giving her a massive hug, which made her feel warm all over. ‘We don’t have to hang around too long if you don’t want to.’

  Adam knew she had been feeling nervous about tonight. Maybe she’d get her wish and they could sneak out for a quiet dinner later.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ he said. ‘There’s a free bar for the next hour or so.’

  ‘Double vodka and Coke, thanks,’ Emily said and Adam raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like her to drink spirits, let alone doubles, but she was feeling stupidly nervous and she needed some Dutch courage.

  ‘Party’s going well, I see,’ she said, nodding at a group of the sales team who were singing lustily and out of tune in a corner by the fire, while some of the younger staff looked like they might be up for some extracurricular activities in dark nooks and crannies. The mood was light and fun, and Emily tried to relax into it.

  She sipped her drink and let the boys’ idle chatter flow over her. The boys were taking the mickey out of the MD, who was currently ogling his secretary, who though young enough to be his daughter was clearly loving the attention.

  ‘You jealous, Dave?’ Adam laughed. ‘I thought you were in there.’

  Dave, according to Adam, was the office lothario.

  ‘I wish,’ said Dave. ‘She’s the one that got away.’

  ‘Glad someone’s immune to your charms,’ Adam laughed, ordering another round.

  One drink led to another, and Emily’s mood started to shift. To her surprise she found she was having fun and wondering what she had worried about. Another couple of vodkas later, she was even flirting outrageously with Phil and Dave, who were great company. Even Marigold, Adam’s dragonlike PA – a brassy forty-something who acted about sixty – who had always been sniffy with Emily, had grudgingly wished her a merry Christmas.

  Adam introduced Emily to the sales team, and before long, with a ‘Come on, Emily, be a sport,’ she found herself roped into a very raucous singalong of ‘Last Christmas’. It suddenly pulled her up short. Last Christmas things had been very different. Adam had been about to leave Livvy and then she’d died. Was it too soon for Emily to be taking her place? The thought made her feel anxious and sad. Deciding that the vodka wasn’t helping, next time she was at the bar Emily switched to red wine.

  As she was returning from the bar to rejoin Adam and the boys, Emily felt a weird sensation, as though someone had punched her in the gut. Her glass of wine flew out of her hand, and spilled all over her, Phil and Dave. Bugger bugger bugger. Why on earth had she chosen to wear a cream dress?

  ‘What the —?’ Emily said, feeling very flustered. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know how that happened.’

  Fortunately Phil and Dave laughed it off, but Emily went to the toilet to clean herself up feeling very unsettled. It had really felt as if someone had pushed her. Deliberately. Which was ridiculous.

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ she said sternly to herself, as she reapplied lipstick. ‘You’ve had too much to drink.’

  Pulling herself together, she went back to the party, running the gauntlet past Marigold and her group of cronies. They all turned to look at Emily as she walked by, and this time she knew she wasn’t being paranoid.

  She just caught Marigold mutter something like, ‘Look at her, bold as brass,’ and another woman say something about stepping in a dead woman’s shoes. Emily would normally have chosen to ignore them – what did she care what they thought of her? But she was still rattled about the spilled drink and she was tired of Marigold’s insinuations, and fed up of being judged by someone she barely knew.

  So she turned round and stopped squarely in front of them, and said, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it.’

  They all looked embarrassed apart from Marigold, who said defiantly, ‘You didn’t take long to get your feet under the table. That poor woman has only been dead a year, and just look at you cosying up to Adam, when he’s vulnerable.’

  ‘That is none of your business,’ Emily said, furious with Marigold for prying where she had no right to, ‘and as for cosying up to Adam, we were good friends before Livvy died.’

  ‘Just good friends?’ Marigold cast a sly aside to her friends.

  ‘Oh go on, why don’t you come out and say it?’ Emily burst out, knowing exactly what Marigold was getting at. They had always been careful, but Adam had worried that Marigold suspected something. ‘You know you want to.’

  ‘Say what?’ Marigold looked innocent, which made Emily even more sure that she had known all along.


  ‘That you think Adam and I had an affair.’

  There was a slightly stunned silence. Even Marigold looked awkward.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she protested.

  ‘But you bloody well thought it,’ Emily said. ‘And for your information, it’s true.’

  There was a huge gasp, and her words came out louder than Emily intended. ‘For all you nasty-minded gossip mongers out there, yes, Adam and I had an affair last year. For your information he was about to leave Livvy. And then she died. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.’

  At that moment there was a lull in the chatter at the bar, and Emily’s words carried across the cavernous silence which suddenly fell in the room.

  She looked across to Adam, who was standing holding his pint, horrified. Dear God, what on earth had she done?

  Chapter Three

  Adam

  The blood drains from my face as I hear Emily’s declaration. Phil and Dave look shocked. They knew little bits of my life, and that things weren’t always happy with Livvy, but they didn’t know about Emily. I hadn’t told anyone. Years of treading a fine line at home had left me unable to communicate with even good mates about what was really going on. Besides, how do you admit to anyone your marriage isn’t working any more? That you dread going home for fear of what you will find? That you are watching your wife drinking herself into an early grave and are powerless to stop it? That you’re sleeping in separate beds and barely talking? I had kept my problems to myself for so long, it was difficult to know where to begin. Besides, there was always the hope that things would get better, and we could go back to the way it was. And then I met Emily, and she blew me away. Suddenly I had found someone who made me happy again, someone I could laugh with, someone who wasn’t permanently angry with me. I didn’t know how to tell anyone all that, so I had told nobody. But now everyone I work with is staring at me and they all know I cheated on my wife. My now dead wife.

  After a few stunned moments, someone behind the bar puts the jukebox on, and everyone goes back to chatting as if nothing has happened. I guess, as this is a Christmas party, there are already other more scandalous things happening in the corners of the room.

  ‘You kept that quiet,’ Phil says accusingly.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘it wasn’t an easy thing to confess. Things at home weren’t exactly brilliant.’

  ‘Blimey,’ says Phil. ‘I really hadn’t had you figured for the playing-away-from-home type, that’s more Dave’s style.’

  Dave grinned ruefully; as the survivor of two failed marriages and innumerable affairs himself, he struggles to deal with commitment.

  ‘I’m not,’ I say, ‘really I’m not. It’s just – things were difficult, really difficult, and Emily just came along …’

  ‘You don’t have to explain to us,’ says Dave, patting me on the back. ‘Good for you, mate. Emily’s great. Don’t listen to the gossips. What do they know?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘I appreciate it.’

  I can see Emily is standing looking slightly dazed by what has happened. I have to get her out of here.

  ‘Time to go I think,’ I say firmly, grabbing her by the arm, and steering her towards the cloakroom. Emily is staggering all over the place. Shit, what’s got into her? She never normally drinks this much. She knows I hate it.

  ‘Adam, I’m so sorry,’ she says. She looks a little shocked, as if she’s not quite sure what happened.

  Neither am I, but if I wanted to stay here any longer, I’ve changed my mind. It was a bad idea to come. A bad idea to bring Emily. For whatever reason, Livvy had a strong support team in my office, and still has. None of them know what she was really like. They just saw the happy family, admired how together we were despite the problems with Joe, and were shocked and stunned by what had happened to her. Everyone was great after Livvy died, but I know they all think Emily’s on the scene suspiciously soon. I wish they’d leave their suspicions and nastiness to themselves.

  And now I’m cross with Emily for coming. For getting drunk. For ruining the evening. It’s unfair of me I know, but for the first time I feel a prickle of anger that Emily isn’t Livvy. Despite everything that went wrong between us, what happened to Livvy wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to be married to her any more, but neither did I want this. Since she died I’ve been in limbo: missing her, grieving for her, trying to be strong for Joe, treading water with Emily, feeling guilty that she makes me so happy, not sure I deserve this second chance. It’s not Emily’s fault, or anyone else’s. It just is.

  The fresh air seems to sober Emily up a little. Immediately she’s remorseful in the way that drunks always are, and for a moment I’m so reminded of Livvy I feel sick. She says, ‘I’m sorry, Adam. I drank far too much. I hope I haven’t made a fool of you at work. I was just so nervous, and then I spilled my drink and I heard Marigold gossiping about me and …’ She looks at me with genuine regret, and I realize, of course, she’s not Livvy. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Emily get drunk. She likes to enjoy herself, certainly, and one of the great things about her is we can have a good time without alcohol being involved – when I think of Livvy, even in our early days our nights out always included drink. I probably shouldn’t have taken Emily to the party. It was too soon. That’s the problem: everything’s too damned soon.

  I take her into my arms and hold her tight.

  ‘Nah, it’s all right,’ I say. ‘Everyone at work’s been really great to me this year, but to be honest, I’m fed up of people talking about me behind my back. You’re the one good thing to happen to me in the last few years. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. At least the truth’s out in the open now. Come on, let’s get dinner.’

  ‘I promise to drink water,’ says Emily, and we wander down the high street looking for somewhere to eat. As we approach an Italian we like, which doesn’t look too busy, I see a black cat walk across our path.

  ‘Ooh, hope that’s lucky,’ says Emily, squeezing me close.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ I say vaguely.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not angry with me?’ Emily is so contrite, I can’t possibly be cross any more. I just look at her and know that whatever happened in the past I want her in my future.

  ‘I’m really not,’ I say and give her a hug. Christmas is coming. Life is very different, but I’ve got Emily beside me, and at the moment, I feel as if I can take over the world.

  Livvy

  I am in shock. My memories of the day I died have become mired in fog thanks to all that time spent in the car park. I knew I was texting Adam angrily about something, but – maybe I didn’t want to remember? – the exact words of my text had been banished to the back of my mind. Now I realize I must have known from the minute Emily was in the house that she was the Other Woman, but I didn’t want to admit that Adam could possibly have carried it on after I’d gone. I felt his anguish when I died. I know he still has feelings for me. I just know it. It makes me more determined than ever to win him back. Malachi’s right: we have unfinished business. I need to show Adam what he’s missing. I lost him to Emily once; I’m not going to let it happen again. Especially where my son is involved.

  I hadn’t really had a plan when I went to the party. But hearing Marigold and her mates gossiping, it seemed a good idea to see if I could nudge them in the right direction. I remember vaguely that Marigold has always been keen on psychics, so she’s very susceptible, which meant it was quite easy for me to get into her thoughts. Sadly, Adam and Emily seem to be far too sceptical, which is making it much harder to get them to listen to me. But with Marigold it was easy. All I had to do was sit down beside her, and drop the idea that Emily and Adam hadn’t wasted much time and hear her repeat it to her neighbour.

  ‘You’d think he might have waited a bit longer, don’t you?’ said one of the girls from the sales team.

  ‘It’s indecent,’ snorted another.

  ‘If you ask me, it’s been going on longer than any of us think,’ was Marigold’s contr
ibution to a collective gasp from the rest of the table, including one from me. It didn’t take long for the rumours to fly. Marigold can always be relied on to pass on a bit of gossip. I think she’s probably half in love with Adam. Maybe she thought he’d find comfort in her arms. Emily must have come as a hell of a shock. I could feel the hatred positively bristling off her. I wasn’t really expecting Emily to confess to a full-blown affair, though. How could Adam have done that to me? What had I done to deserve it? I am reeling from the shock. I am going to split them up, and she will keep her claws off Adam. He’s mine.

  Not that I appear to have succeeded in that endeavour. Having thought that Adam would be angry with Emily, he seems to have got over it annoyingly quickly. If I had the tiniest drink at an office party, Adam was always tediously on my case about it. I remember one spectacular row when he accused me of showing him up because I’d danced on a table with the managing director.

  ‘I was only having a laugh,’ I’d protested. ‘You have no sense of fun any more.’

  He’d looked at me in incomprehension, then said, ‘Maybe my idea of fun is different from yours.’

  We’d gone to bed that night in separate rooms, and he never referred to it again. But now, look at him, forgiving Emily so easily, when she’d embarrassed him far more than I ever had. It doesn’t seem fair.

  I follow them as far as an Italian restaurant and watch them go inside. They’re sitting at a table looking totally loved up, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach just to watch them. This won’t do at all.

  ‘And what did you think you were going to achieve with that stunt?’ Malachi appears on the street, looking very pissed off.

  ‘I had hoped that it would make Adam see the error of his ways and remember it’s me that he loves, not Emily.’

  ‘In case you’d forgotten, there’s a bit of a flaw in your plan.’